I can't seem to find the listing. Perhaps it is some sort of reality based made for TV movie?
British economic 'horror movie' to continue: think-tank
"As with any horror movie, there is an escape route but it is not an easy one," the report read.
"It is imperative that wage increases remain restrained, despite the tremendous pressure from food and energy cost inflation... A general outbreak of wage inflation would spell disaster, requiring much higher interest rates and a recession in output to get inflation back under control."
Surely there must be something the government can do to ease wage pressure.
Unemployment, meanwhile, will rise to two million by 2010, compared to 1.6 million at the end of last year.
Zimbabwe 's wage pressure would seem rather low given its 80% unemployment. We anxiously await its inflation rate to drop a few million percent.
Magic Ponies for the win!
Stag,
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
A couple of points regarding the above Wiki link. One, public debt (as a percentage of GDP) did not spiral out of control in the 1970s as many claim. Two, a pile of our current public debt is short term and subject to interest rate risk. Three, much more of our public debt is now owned by foreigners.
Ignoring the make-up & staggering size of the debt, my gut tells me that most of the debt piled up over the past five years is unproductive (wars, housing, SUVs, stimulus plans that get shipped to China & the Middle East. In fact, I'd could even argue that much of the debt is counterproductive. Very similar to the "guns & butter" of the 1960s & 1970s.
The more I see, the more I think your stagflation prediction will play out. In a disciplined economy, unproductive debt should die on the vine. But its becoming clear that we just don't have the stomach for that as a country. We also won't be able to tolerate soaring inflation to allow an end run default on the debt. That leaves stagflation or some yet to be coined term. I'm leaning towards calling it painflation. I like bushflation too, but it's going to span several different presidencies. Maybe freelunchflation.
1970s rerun.
MAB,
ReplyDeleteI believe the problem with freelunchflation is that everything seems perfectly fine right up until the point that it isn't.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRn5-LQCg2s